grows about 30 inches high. It has 

 branching canes and the fruit is a 

 good red raspberry, ripening very 

 early. Such plants would be easier 

 to winter in difficult locations in the 

 TVortheast, as the snow covers them. 

 An Fo generation is being grown 

 and some of the promising F2 se- 

 lections are being increased for 

 wider trial. It is evident already 

 that from this cross good red rasp- 

 Lerry varieties, ranging in plant 

 height from six inches to six feet, 

 can be developed. What their chrom- 

 osomes numbers may be has not been 

 determined; but as raspberry has 14 

 chromosomes and bakeberry 56, var- 

 iation in numbers might be expected. 



STRAWBERRIES 



GREAT BAY STRAWBERRY 



One of the principal objectives of 

 the strawberry-breeding work has 

 been to provide a variety that is 

 later than Howard No. 17 (Premi- 

 er), our leading commercial variety. 

 It might be equal or better than 

 Premier in quality, productiveness, 

 and resistance to disease. The cross 

 between Simcoe, a very late, firm- 

 fruited but rather acid variety from 

 Canada, and Catskill, a handsome, 

 dark-red, high-quality variety has 

 given good seedlings. Rigorous test- 

 ing in comparison with hundreds of 

 other seedlings and the best named 

 varieties, resulted in the selection of 

 one which was named Great Bay in 

 1948. Great Bay is a vigorous-grow- 

 ing variety. It produces perfect 

 flowers and the foliage is resistant 

 to leaf spot. Fruit is produced in 

 great abundance and begins ripening 

 a few days after Howard No. 17. 

 The plants also seem to have the 

 ability to continue ripening their 

 fruit over a long period, so that the 

 last commercial pickings ripen with 

 the last pickings of some varieties 

 which produce their first ripe fruits 

 very much later than Great Bay. 



Thus we get high productivity of 

 late fruits plus the earlier crop, mak- 

 ing the season's total much greater 

 than varieties which produce no 

 earlier crop. 



OTHER STRAWBERRY BREEDING 



Another strawberry population 

 grown with the same objective in 

 mind has come from crossing Tup- 

 per, a very late, large Canadian var- 

 iety crossed with Fairfax. It has 

 given some very good seedlings and 

 the best of them possibly may be 

 named. 



Another objective of strawberry 

 breeding at the New Hampshire 

 Agricultural Experiment Station has 

 been to introduce into the cultivated 

 varieties some of the native wild 

 strawberry's good characteristics, 

 such as hardiness without winter 

 mulching, high aroma, and desirable 

 flavor. Selections made from the 

 wild strawberry that seemed to have 

 these desirable characteristics were 

 studied under cultivation. They 

 showed great variability, ranging 

 from very soft to very hard fruits; 

 from long, slender fruits to round: 

 from very light color to dark; from 

 very acid to sweet; and from plants 

 which are extremely susceptible to 

 leaf spot to those that seem to be 

 almost entirely immune. First-gen- 

 eration crosses between selected wild 

 strawberries and cultivated berries 

 gave fruits of intermediate size on 

 very vigorous productive plants and 

 of acceptable fruit quality. They 

 have also shown great ability to 

 withstand unfavorable weather with- 

 out damage. If any commercial 

 varieties are to come from this 

 group, however, it will be necessary 

 to use the best of the first generation 

 seedlings and back cross them again 

 with high-quality, cultivated varieties 

 to increase the size. This is being 

 done. 



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